Augustus Saint-Gaudens' class at the Art Students League, New York City, circa 1888 (Saint-Gaudens is in the top row, standing second from the right), U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service, Saint-Gaudens National Historic Site, Cornish, New Hampshire

In a letter he wrote to the Art Students League Saint-Gaudens said: "I am a most earnest well-wisher of the art students of America. The older I grow the more and more I am convinced that a thorough and adequate training can be found here as abroad, that the work by students here is equal to that produced by those in Europe."